


New York to East California

by mismatched_ideas



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Driving, First Kiss, Fluff, M/M, Music, Road Trip, Singing, for Phichit's birthday!, wow I think this is the first time I've written something with no angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-01
Updated: 2017-05-01
Packaged: 2018-10-26 03:14:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10778367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mismatched_ideas/pseuds/mismatched_ideas
Summary: Leo is turning 21 and since Seung-gil and Phichit both live near each other in New York City, they decide it would be fun to drive to Los Angels together. And the first thing Seung-gil learns is that Phichit loves to sing in the car.





	New York to East California

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Birthday, Phichit! 
> 
> I wanted to get this out before 4/30 ended so it's minimally edited.
> 
> The title is a line from Kid in America because I am too tired to come up with a better name. 
> 
> [ PROMPT USED! ](http://otpprompts.tumblr.com/post/159395931323/imagine-your-otp-singing-along-to-carry-on/)

Flying would have been the more sensible choice but they both decided it would be cheaper to drive from New York City all the way to Los Angles. 

Secretly, Phichit just wanted to spend some alone time with Seung-gil. 

Little did Phichit know, Seung-gil had only agreed to this because _he_ wanted to spend time with Phichit. At least he had but they had only been driving for a few hours and Seung-gil was already regretting letting Phichit choose the music.

Well, it wasn’t the music that he regretted so much as he regretted whatever decisions lead him to listen to Phichit sing at the top of his lungs to every song that came on. It wasn’t even like Phichit was a bad singer, he wasn’t tone-deaf that was for sure, it was just that he’d been singing at the same volume and with the same intensity for almost an hour straight. If he was honest, it was a little impressive. 

For his part, Seung-gil didn’t like singing songs in English, which was the language of choice for this round of songs. He felt a little embarrassed by how strong his accent was when he sang. 

“Carry on my wayward son, there’ll be peace when you are done!” Seung-gil knew Phichit had turned to look at him based on the change in volume. “Lay your weary head to rest! Don’t you cry, Don’t you cry no more, no more!” 

The music continued, there was still quite a bit of guitar left to go, and Phichit fell silent. 

“Do you want to switch?” 

“I’ve only been driving for a few hours.” Seung-gil glanced at Phichit for a moment before training his eyes back onto the road. “We have quite a ways to go before we need to switch. And you should get some sleep. Eight hours is a long time to drive.” 

“Maybe we should switch more often.” He suggested. “Maybe four hours instead of the eight straight.”

“I feel fine.” He gave Phichit a look, “And you should sleep so that you are fine to drive in four hours.”

“Fine.” Phichit groaned, “One more song though. Then I’ll sleep.”

“Fine, but after that, I’m putting on a podcast.”

“Old man.” Phichit stuck his tongue out but smiled when the next song came on and immediately went back to his loud, passionate singing. “Looking out a dirty old window, down below the cars in the city go rushing by! I sit here alone and I wonder why?” Out of the corner of his eyes, Seung-gil could see Phichit was really getting into the song. A smile pulled at his lips, small but not unnoticed by Phichit who smiled wider as he sang. Seung-gil wondered if the shorter man would be able to fall asleep after this much excitement. Maybe listening to podcasts in a language he didn’t speak would do the trick, though. “Friday night and everyone’s moving! I can feel the heat but it’s soothing, heading down! I search for the beat in this dirty town!”

Seung-gil decided that, as crazy as it seemed to him that someone could keep this singing up for so long he really enjoyed it when it was coming from Phichit. 

\---

A change in speed woke Seung-gil up from his short nap. He hadn’t gone to sleep immediately after switching with Phichit because he wanted to be able to sleep tonight.

“Are we stopping?” Seung-gil asked groggily as Phichit turned out of the exit ramp and onto a dimly lit side road. 

“Yep.” Phichit yawned, “It’s a little past ten now. Or it was ten back in New York, I’m honestly not sure what time it is right now.”

Phichit pulled into the motel of a motel that was a little more rundown than Seung-gil might have liked. He didn’t care about comfort but he was a little worried about how safe this place was. And whether it had bedbugs. 

“You sure you don’t want to find a better place?”

“Oh, don’t worry, this place isn’t as bad as it looks.” Seung-gil gave him a look and Phichit laughed, both of them sliding out of the car. “I stayed here once with Yuuri while we were making a trip to a competition. Neither of us thought it was worth getting a plane ticket at the time but we really regretted trying to make that drive. Especially Yuuri since he was the only one of us who could drive at the time.”

“Huh.” Was Seung-gil’s only comment as they entered the main office. 

A young woman, she looked too young to be working at a place like this at any time of night, was sitting behind the counter. She was braiding and unbraiding a piece of pink hair, looking bored out of her mind until she saw us. 

“Welcome! Room for two?”

“Yes please.” Phichit smiled at her, “My friend and I have been awake since five.”

“Long ride?” She typed in a few numbers before grabbing a set of keys from behind her. “Do you have cash? Our card machine has been kind of funky lately.”

“We’re on our way to LA for a friend’s birthday.” Phichit dug through his wallet, trying to get out the right amount of money. They’d already decided who would pay for what and tonight Phichit was paying for their lodging. “Is this enough?”

“That’s exactly right.” She smiled, “You’re really making quite the trip for these friends. Why not just take a plane?”

Seung-gil would never understand why Americans seemed so intent on small talk with everyone they met. At least in New York that was less of a problem, most people wanting to just get on with their days. He was glad to have Phichit here to do the talking since he wasn’t good at talking on days when he wasn’t groggy from just having woken up. 

“We thought this would be fun! It was nice to meet you…” He squinted at her nametag, “Karen. Hope you have a good night.”

“You too.” She smiled as they left for their room. 

Seung-gil barely had the presence of mind to get ready for bed and check for bedbug before falling onto the surprisingly soft mattress near the wall. Phichit did the same, also checking the locks on the doors and windows, before laying in his own bed and setting an alarm on his phone. 

“Goodnight, Seung-gil.”

But Seung-gil was already asleep, his breathing quiet and even from the darkness to Phichit’s left. 

\---

“…so I just don’t understand why they had to change it! I mean I understand it's a movie, so the emotional stuff doesn’t work as well as the visually impressing type of stuff, but that scene was so good in the book. Sure, the hand stabbing thing was awesome, but leaving out the emotional scene that was in the book sort of robs their love story of some of its meaning.”

Phichit had been going on about some book he liked, and its respective movie, for a while now. Seung-gil was fine with it, he just liked listening to Phichit talk, but he felt useless since he couldn’t add anything to the conversation. That said, Phichit seemed content with just telling Seung-gil about his issues with the films and books respectively. 

“And then there was the sequel! God, that movie was a disappointment. They changed so much about it when adapting from the book. That isn’t always a bad thing but they completely cut out important portions of the book. They were important emotionally and without them all the characters kind of seem like assholes. I don’t mind movies changing some things, it makes sense, but they changed entire character motivations.”

Seung-gil loved the way Phichit’s voice rose and fell, never losing the tone of indignation that was tinting his entire rant. 

“What about the third movie?” Seung-gil was honestly guessing about there being a third one. Most American young adult fiction came in three books and four movies from what he could tell.

“Never saw it.” Seung-gil looked over with a little bit of shock in his eyes. And he was shocked. After the almost hour long talk about how much he liked the first book and then his feelings on the first movie, he assumed Phichit had seen and read them all. “I almost didn’t finish the book so I didn’t think the movie could be much better. Like it was the worst book in the series.”

“That’s a strong opinion.”

“Writing-wise, it was the strongest.” And he was off, gesturing wildly as he spoke and eliciting a small smile from Seung-gil. Phichit missed the smile, though, and it was gone as quickly as it formed. “But narrative-wise it was bad. It was dull and predictable. It made likable characters unlikeable and I think a lot of characters acted, well, out of character. Then to kill a main character in such an unceremonious way was annoying. I’m all for main characters not being invincible, but this came out nowhere and didn’t seem to make sense for the story. It just felt like the author wanted to be edgy.”

Seung-gil let Phichit continue, even though it was almost time to switch. He’d let Phichit finish his thought before pulling off. He didn’t mind driving a little extra if it meant he could listen to Phichit talk passionately about something he enjoyed. 

\---

“Seung-gil?” Phichit questioned into the darkness of their hotel room. Seung-gil had chosen a nicer place tonight than their previous lodging. Mostly that was because there wasn’t anything cheaper that didn’t look like it was owned by a serial killer. 

“Yes?”

“Are you enjoying yourself?”

“I am.”

“I’m glad.” Phichit smiled to himself, “I’m enjoying myself too.”

Phichit couldn’t see it, but in the bed next to him Seung-gil was smiling, a small blush dusting his nose and cheeks. 

\---

Phichit may have been driving, but that didn’t keep him from singing. 

“I've got my ticket for the long way 'round, the one with the prettiest of views. It's got mountains. It's got rivers. It's got sights to give you shivers.” There was a tiny pause in the song and Phichit turned to look at Seung-gil, smirking and biting his lip. “But it sure would be prettier with you.”

He turned back to the road and Seung-gil could feel his cheeks burning. They were about an hour from their next stop, they’d planned the trip with a short third day since they were stopping at The Grand Canyon. The entire drive today had been a series of semi-flirty songs and looks from Phichit and Seung-gil wasn’t sure how to interpret them. 

In the course of yesterday’s drive, he’d learned that Leo had been the source of the CDs Phichit had been playing. Apparently, after they first met, Leo had made Phichit a collection of American songs he thought Phichit would like. Eventually, he also added music from Britain and Canada, followed by a few CDs of music from Latin America. 

This made it harder for Seung-gil to decide if Phichit was just playing around or not. 

“Why don’t you sing?” Phichit asked when this song ended, a song sung in an American Southern accent coming on. Something about a wheel. 

“What do you mean?”

“You have a nice voice, why don’t you sing?” 

Seung-gil’s face reddened again. “You don’t know that.”

“Sure I do. Don’t you remember that time we all went to karaoke? You sang one song with Yuuri because he wouldn’t stop bothering you.” Seung-gil had been singing pretty quietly, his face turned away from the microphone while he did. “You have a really good singing voice.” 

“I don’t know about really good.”

They fell into silence as the current song played out, generic scenery passing by them with no fanfare or sound. This was a surprisingly isolated portion of the highway, but that probably had a lot to do with the fact that it was the middle of the week. 

When the current song ended and the next one started up, Phichit smiled wide and began singing again. Seung-gil was pretty sure this song had been played at Yuuri and Viktor’s wedding. He was also pretty sure Phichit had gotten _really_ into dancing to it. Seung-gil mostly knew the song because he got it stuck in his head by accident when it was first released and he had ended up singing it a bunch to try and dislodge it from his mind. 

Now it was all coming back to him.

“We were victims of the night. The chemical, physical kryptonite. Helpless to the bass and the fading light. Oh, we were bound to get together, bound to get together.” Phichit didn’t turn to look at Seung-gil but he did take one hand of the steering wheel to grab onto the taller man’s arm, “She took my arm, I don’t know how it happened. We took the floor and she said.”

He turned and looked at Seung-gil expectantly, a huge smile on his face and a sparkling interesting that made Seung-gil sigh. 

“Oh, don’t you dare look back. Just keep your eyes on me.” His cheeks were burning as he sang, his voice sound stupid to his own ears until Phichit jumped in.

“I said, you’re holding back. She said,”

“Shut up and dance with me.”

Phichit’s eyes were back on the road but he was smiling, his face a little red as he sang. “This man is my destiny. He said,”

Seung-gil almost didn’t respond, mind reeling from Phichit’s impromptu lyric change. He did find his voice at the last moment.

“Ooh-ooh-hoo, shut up and dance with me.”

Phichit started singing alone, Seung-gil too embarrassed to join in and instead enjoying the sound of Phichit’s voice.

Had he really just done all that. Singing in front of someone else was bad enough but whatever had just happened had given away more than Seung-gil meant to. He was glad that Phichit seemed content to move on without comment. 

\---

The Grand Canyon was pretty. Also terrifying. 

“Phichit, I am not going out there.” Seung-gil stood near the edge of the so-called ‘skywalk’ walkway, fear he’d never before experienced gripping his entire body. 

“It’s going to be fine, don’t worry.” 

“You cannot be sure it’ll be fine.” Seung-gil didn’t want to get any closer to what seemed like a death trap to him. Why would anyone want to walk out onto a glass platform above a giant hole? 

“I promise, it will be.” Phichit came back over to Seung-gil and smiled at him. Phichit slipped his hand into Seung-gil’s, tugging him out onto the walkway. In a cloud of red-faced nervousness, Seung-gil’s fear about the glass walkway were momentarily gone. 

Momentarily was the key word because once they got all way out to the farthest point of the walkway, Seung-gil felt terror grip him again. Before this trip, he hadn’t thought he was afraid of height. Now he knew he’d been wrong about that.

“Seung-gil, look at me.” He looked up at Phichit who was smiling like this wasn’t the most horrifying place they’d ever been. “You’re fine.”

“This is terrible, why would anyone want to walk out on this?” Seung-gil tried to look down but Phichit caught Seung-gil’s chin with his free hand. 

“Because it’s nice.” He responded in the most unhelpful way possible.

“I don’t think it’s nice.”

“How about I make it nice then?” Seung-gil wasn’t sure how he was going to do that and was going to ask him but was interrupted by the sudden realization that Phichit was leaning towards him.

To say Seung-gil was surprised when their lips met would have been an understatement. But, at the time there were only two words Seung-gil could think to call this. One was surprising. The other was definitely nice. 

\---

One night of quiet murmuring and eight more hours of driving later Seung-gil and Phichit finally got to Los Angeles for Leo’s twenty-first birthday party. 

They’d decided not to tell anyone there about their relationship just yet, it seemed premature but the moment Leo walked up to greet them he gave Phichit a knowing look. Phichit found he got the same look from Yuuri when he and Viktor arrived.

“What’s that look?” Phichit finally asked Yuuri, who only raised an eyebrow as if to ask Phichit if he was seriously asking that question. 

“You two might as well be holding hands, you’re standing so close together. And I know you’ve had a thing for him since you both skated together when you were like eighteen. You don’t think I can’t recognize the look of someone who’s finally with their crush from forever?” Phichit blushed, looking mortified to have this secret told to Seung-gil. “And who would choose to drive for four days cross country with someone they weren’t dating when they could just fly?”

Phichit smirked, “Well, we actually weren’t dating before we left.”

For a moment Yuuri blinked but then he burst into laughter. 

“Well, I guess Leo’s wasn’t lying about the success of those mix tapes.”

That made Phichit almost spit out his drink, his face red to the point of seeming to radiate heat. Seung-gil’s face was equally as red but even so, he found himself laughing quietly to himself. When Phichit looked at him, surprised to hear the stoic man laughing, Seung-gil somehow found some courage and was able to grab ahold of Phichit’s hand. 

They stayed hand in hand for most of the night, a huge smile on Phichit’s face matched with a small one on Seung-gil’s.

**Author's Note:**

> I finished this literally at 11:59PM EST I'm not even kidding. It's still 4/30 in central time, so it counts even though I posted this past midnight here. 
> 
> Happy Birthday my sweet, sweet son, you deserve the world. 
> 
> As always, thank you for reading as well as leaving kudos and comments. 
> 
>    
> [ Tumblr ](http://mismatched-ideas.tumblr.com/)


End file.
